


Brief Interlude

by JustAnotherGhostwriter



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Canon Disabled Character, F/M, Fluff, Spoilers: basically nothing happens in this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-17 02:35:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20613545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAnotherGhostwriter/pseuds/JustAnotherGhostwriter
Summary: Just another day in the SSR that features sleep-deprived agents trying to catch a shooter while navigating a blossoming romance and the usual shenanigans that cases usually throw their way.





	Brief Interlude

**Author's Note:**

  * For [writethisway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/writethisway/gifts).

> For Hayley, who requested this over on Tumblr. It's technically filling the "crutches" square on by Bad Things Happen Bingo card, but it _refused_ to be anything except fluffy. And entirely filler-episode-esque. I apologise for this, and for the lateness.

For the first few days after she’d been officially declared the liaison between Daniel, the interim New York SSR chief and a convalescing Jack, as well as the co-lead agent on Jack’s shooting case, Peggy tried her hardest not to do anything to ruffle already disgruntled, suspicious or otherwise nervous feathers. The eyes that were on her, waiting for her to fail, added to  the heavyweight that her personal ties to Jack’s shooting lay on her shoulders , and she  pushed herself to  work doubly hard than everybody else, besides perhaps Daniel,  who was just as personally invested in keeping Jack alive and  safe enough to continue annoying them. It only took her the first few days, however, to realise that doing nothing out of place would  _still _ garner her criticism, and would  further severely hamper her ability to do things quicker than bureaucracy could allow, and  so  she tossed her Good Girl persona out the window. 

But she did so quietly and slowly, so as not to cause alarm and, somehow, by the time a week had passed, the most scandalous things she’d done were take Jack’s ICU doctor down a few pegs and move out of the bullpen and into Daniel’s office,  commandeering half of his desk for herself . While both had been necessary actions, she maintained, the second was also incredibly logical, as it negated the need for her or Daniel to traipse across the office every time they wanted to discuss something or check a fact. Or complain about something small and silly, sharing inside jokes and snacks, the way they had when they’d worked at adjacent desks back in New York. 

“Right.” Daniel’s pen hit the desk with a snap and Peggy jolted at the sudden intrusions upon the deep silence they’d both been sitting in for hours. “I think it’s time to get some breakfast.” 

He looked as haggared as Peggy felt. They’d left the office late, had visited Jack and then had been caught up in what proved to be one of the more frustratingly mundane cases the SSR dealt with. Or, really, one of the cases the SSR  _routinely _ dealt with, when they weren’t chasing dimensional rifts or incorporeal humans. It had already been past dawn once they’d wrapped the case up, and with the staff so thin and the stakes so high they both knew they’d be unable to simply skip coming into work. So they’d gone straight there, taking turns to nap on Daniel’s office couch, starting on the paperwork mounds that multiplied every time they looked away for just a second and generally both trying to look like they weren’t wearing yesterday’s clothes. Which was, Peggy reflected, a lot easier than it probably should be, especially for Daniel – every one of his suits and ridiculous shirts looked more-or-less the same. 

“Is it really?” She blearily glanced at the clock on the wall, and then blinked a few times as her brain struggled to make sense of the pose the arms were striking. 

Daniel chuckled at her, light and charming. “You look like you need coffee and breakfast as well.” He hesitated for a beat too long, and Peggy turned to look at him, a wordless question on her face. “And, uh... perhaps... a walk, too? To, uh... wake up, some. You could come with to get breakfast. If you want,” he added, hastily. 

“I’m so close to finishing this bloody tedious report that I can _smell _the victory. I’d rather sit here and not lose momentum,” she said, tapping said report with her pen. 

Daniel’s smile froze for a moment, and then his face was ducking away as he rooted for his crutch and got to standing. “Right,” he said, voice and face both warm and smooth again. “Can I at least bring you something back with me? Unless your purse now comes with a bagel cart, too,” he teased. 

“I _wish_,” Peggy sighed. “I’d love something, thank you. Just grab whatever looks good – you know what I like.” 

Daniel grinned that side grin at her, murmured a goodbye and was off. Peggy returned to her report and got through another paragraph before her concentration wavered and her mind started sliding around to other things. It took another few moments for the realisation to slide home that Daniel had been asking her, in a cautiously polite round-about way, to accompany him on a walk. And she’d turned him down without even thinking about it.  _You know what I like_ she’d told him, dismissive, as though this was just her and him as a steadfast team, like before. As though they hadn’t been doing a strange and slightly awkward silent emotional dance with each other since her throwing herself at him for a good, long kiss had ended in the world tilting sickeningly with the news of Jack’s shooting. They’d mostly ignored the fact that anything had changed, except for the increasingly frequent moments when their hands had brushed, or clasped, or touched each other’s shoulders, elbows, that one moment he’d rested his hand on the small of her back and had  _lingered_ ... 

Instinctive, unsure, unmentioned. And there he was, offering some type of date, and she’d shot him down. Even though she  _wanted _ to go on walks with Daniel, just the two of them, with a certainty that surprised and almost concerned her.  _You, Margaret_ , a voice in her mind that sounded like her mother sighed,  _are acutely terrible at this. _

Peggy tapped her pen on her report and resolved, firmly, to make sure she set to rights what she may have done wrong over the past few days. The last thing she wanted was for her and Daniel to return to that level of strange distance that she’d found after that day he’d asked her out for drinks and she’d turned him down. Things  _had _ changed. And she’d  _wanted _ them to change – Daniel had stood there and let the choice be hers and she’d  _chosen _ and did not regret it. And she would remind him of her choice as soon as he returned back to the office, no matter how awkward it was and how much her ineloquence may be exacerbated by her sleep deprivation. Satisfied now that she’d decided upon a course of action, Peggy returned to her report while she waited. 

She’d finished said report and was halfway through the next one when her attention wandered again enough for her to realise that Daniel should have been back by then. Frowning at the clock on the wall, Peggy speculated that there was probably a longer queue at the popular place the SSR agents frequented due to the hour, meaning that if she left she’d possibly be able to at least have a short walk back with Daniel. It wouldn’t make up for the loss she’d mistakenly caused herself, but it  _would _ be nice to get some fresh air, and perhaps the conversation they were going to have was better held somewhere without trained spies just the next room over. 

Rose’s exasperated voice could be easily heard from the top of the stairs, and, curious and bemused, Peggy hurried down to see what Samberly had gotten into  _this time_ . The scientist in question was carefully rolling a giant barrel that smelled  _horrendous_ through the foyer, ignoring Rose’s chiding about letting citizens see him carrying suspicious objects into what was  _supposed _ to be a theatrical agency. 

“It _can’t _go through the service entrance,” Samberly said, not even looking at her as he _very carefully manoeuvred_ the barrel towards the secret filing cabinet entrance. “This is highly corrosive acid – all that jolting would spill it, and _then _we’d be in trouble.” 

Rose took a decisive step  _away _ from the barrel. “ _Acid,_ Samberly? What on  _earth _ are you doing with a barrel of acid?”

“Chief said to research it,” Samberly said, still distracted. “Some masked man tried to drop it on a bunch of our agents just up the road – ate a _phenomenal _hole right through the tar. Chief got a plug in the hole, but it’s not entirely perfect, so we want it in the lab where it won’t be as much trouble as soon as we can.” 

Peggy also gave the barrel a wide berth as it neared the door she had just come through. As she rounded it, she glanced at the makeshift plug in the hole of the barrel, noticing, as Samberly had said, that that some of the contents of the barrel – an innocent watery gruel colour – were still oozing onto the carpet, leaving hissing, steaming craters where they landed. Peggy’s heart simultaneously dropped and leapt when she saw that the object currently plugging said hole was a warped, melted-looking prosthetic leg. 

“Where’s Daniel?” she asked Samberly, her alarm causing her to forget to refer to him as Chief Sousa. 

“Uh...” Samberly trailed off, still more interested in the barrel. “Probably still out there?” 

“Samberly, where, precisely, is _out there_?” 

As the scientist gave her vague directions, Peggy headed toward the front door at a brisk trot, that turned even brisker once she was outside and headed toward the place Samberly had sketched out. Thankfully, the crowd of curious onlookers made an easy-to-follow landmark, and she arrived on the scene of bits of road simply missing – corroded away, as Samberly had said – an ambulance just beginning to drive away and Daniel sitting on the hood of a police vehicle, talking to a policeman. He looked dirty and a little scraped and, when she pushed her way closer, ignoring the policeman calling for her to  _stay behind the line, ma’am, _ could see the places his clothes had been erratically eaten away. The thought of the substance that had chewed the road and his clothes being on his  _skin _ made her stomach lurch. 

“Are you alright?” she asked, as soon as he broke off speaking to the policeman and turned to her. “What happened? Did it get on your skin?” 

“No, not really,” he said, answering her last question first. “Haga got it the worst; he got hit before we knew what was in that barrel.” He ran a hand roughly down his face, and started a little when she put her hand on his shoulder. 

“Eventful breakfast walk,” she said evenly, trying for levity. 

He gave her a rueful smile. “Didn’t end up doing much walking. And... won’t, probably, for a while.” 

She stopped herself from staring down at his right pants leg, which she knew would be hanging empty. “All the more reason to be looked over by a doctor.” Daniel opened his mouth, and she cut across him with, “We need to go and visit Jack sometime this morning, anyway. May as well do two birds with one stone.” 

But although it was her idea, her twisting his arm to agree and her under his right arm like a human crutch,  her  helping him get to the car she’d brought around for him and then through the doors of the hospital, when she handed him over to the doctor she couldn’t bring herself to move from the closed door. Daniel’s undercurrent of embarrassed resignation, and the silence it caused, had put her on edge, but there was nothing she could do to remedy the situation. This was one time that going in, guns blazing, was impossible. And she did not like facing opponents such as this one. Eventually, she left to go and scrounge something edible from the hospital canteen, since neither she nor Daniel had ever managed to get breakfast. 

Daniel emerged from the room a little after she got back from her mission, supporting second crutch, what was left of his acid-eaten pants leg knotted haphazardly. It made something funny happen in her chest – a mixture between the emotion she’d felt when she’d first seen how high the amputation site was, sympathy and relief. She didn’t ask, as they settled on a hard bench and she handed him the sandwich she’d managed to find for him, but he told her anyway. 

“Stump got a little bit burned.” He didn’t look at her as he said it, focussed on the sandwich. Peggy’s insides continued to squirm in mixed emotions. “So they won’t get me another leg until it’s all healed up.” A beat later, Peggy saw him give her a little bit of a side glance. “I really put my foot in this one.” 

She groaned, trying not to snort out a laugh. “ _Daniel._ ” 

And that, somehow, made the tension in his shoulders loosen. He smiled at her, eyes warm again despite the exhausted lines and shadows, and a much more pleasant twisting happened in her gut. Jack was, thankfully, asleep when they visited his room. After reassuring themselves that he was alive, recovering and not yet banned from the hospital for any antics or bad moods, they avoided having to explain  _random vat of acid got dropped on us today _ to him for the time being and returned to the SSR. Unfortunately, odd occurrences didn’t write their own paperwork. Especially not when injuries to agents were involved; those were extra pages that made Peggy a little bit sorry for what she must have put Dooley and Jack through. 

It was harder than she would have thought to pretend not to hover as Daniel manoeuvred himself into and out of the car, and _especially _hard not to find flimsy excuses to linger beside him on the stairs, even though he gently but firmly told her she could go on ahead. It _wasn’t _that she didn’t know how capable he was. Instead, it was the knowledge of how close he’d come to being corroded away in the street that very morning, mere meters from their office, that had ants crawling under her own skin. Peggy was even happier at her decision to move into Daniel’s office now, because it meant he was often in her peripheral to quell the slyly persistent, exhaustion-created images of what _could _have been. 

The day dragged by, paperwork monotony punctured only by her frequent trips to get Daniel coffee and herself tea, trips to the restroom or the one memorable excursion down to the lab where Samberly explained the chemical makeup of the acid while trying to hide the tools he’d melted while poking at it throughout the morning. Peggy got some fresh air fetching lunch, but even that couldn’t keep her fully awake by the time evening started to approach, and she found herself with her face smushed into her hand as she tried to motivate herself to keep writing.

“Tea?” Daniel asked her around a yawn that immediately set off a mirror reaction in her.

“I’ll get it – I’m about to fall asleep.” And, as good as Daniel had proved to be on his crutches, even while tired, she couldn’t see how he could manage with them and carrying two cups of hot liquid at the same time. “Coffee for you?”

There was a look on Daniel’s face – calculating and almost _distrustful_ – but all he said was, “Yes, please,” and she left him behind to get the drinks.

The look was still there, albeit muted, when she returned and set his coffee before him. The thought of sitting back down to paperwork was repulsive, so she made a grab for the pile of filing she had let stack up and then, after a moment of thought, reached for Daniel’s pile, too, shifting it into her arms.

“Carter, what are you doing?”

She glanced up in surprise at Daniel’s tone, and then straightened instinctively when she saw his frown. “Filing?”

“Yes, but why do you think you have to do _mine_, too?” She blinked at him, uncomprehending, and Daniel folded his arms, a sure sign he was feeling defensive. “Last I checked, you were my co-worker, and _not _my secretary. And yet all you’ve done today is fetch me coffee, go on the lunch run, run errands for me and now filing, too?”

“Daniel.” Incredulity and surprise warred to be the most prominent emotion in her. “I am _not _attempting to be your _secretary. _I –”

“So then is it pity?” he asked, harshly, and the penny dropped for her.

“_No_. I –” Peggy stopped her instinctive reaction; reigned in the emotions and tried to find the right words, lest she muck this up. She placed the filing down and went around the desk, perching on the corner of it, her legs almost brushing against Daniel, who looked rather surprised at her body language. “Most of it was because if I stopped moving I would have fallen asleep,” she explained, firmly. “But, you’re half right in thinking that some of it was motivated by a desire to help. I never wanted to insinuate that I thought you incapable, though. Trust me; I know how _stifling _well-meaning but unnecessary _help _can be.” His face softened before her, and she felt both relief and guilt. “I’m sorry, Daniel. If I overstepped. But it was me attempting to be helpful to a very good friend; that’s all.”

His lips quirked a little. “‘A _very _good friend’?” he asked, hope and caution and playfulness in his eyes.

“Possibly more than just a friend, if I’d stop accidentally turning down all your attempts at asking me out,” she said, and watched him blink swiftly at her in his surprise.

Then his gaze turned a softer kind of thoughtful, even as one hand reached up and curled into hers. She thrilled at the feeling of her fingers slowly, surely, sliding into the spaces between his. “Well. You know – I may need some help tonight cooking dinner. And eating it. Definitely eating it.”

She laughed a little, softly. “I think my schedule’s free,” she replied, dryly. “Now. May I please complete the filing? For both of us?”

“Is this going to be one of those ‘you owe me ones’ that come back to haunt me later?” Daniel asked, mock wary.

Peggy grinned. “Of course.” And then, before she could stop herself, she blurted, “I’ve now got you in my crutches, after all.” She paused, her face turning horrified. “I _cannot _believe I just said that. Your horrible joking is rubbing off on me.”

Daniel  _laughed_ , bright and real and warm, an d Peggy lingered just to hear it reach completion with her hand still in his. 


End file.
